


Gone

by spuffyduds



Category: due South
Genre: 100-1000 Words, Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-06
Updated: 2010-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-05 22:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set early in Season One's finale "Letting Go."</p>
    </blockquote>





	Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Set early in Season One's finale "Letting Go."

Those few hours when he's not at the hospital or the station, Ray's started crashing at Fraser's apartment--it's closer to both than his house is, and he's tired of doing Fraser updates for all the Vecchios every time he walks in the door. _No, they're not taking the, the bullet out. Yeah, I'm sure._

He cracks the windows at Fraser's sometimes, lets it air out a little. Throws away the furry food in the fridge. Brings the mail in.

And, yeah, he goes through the mail pretty carefully, because it _has_ occurred to him that she might try to get in touch. She was so sure of Benny, those last few moments, reaching for him and smiling so huge, sure she had him. But there's never anything personal--he makes a pile of bills, tosses the credit-card offers and the charitable begging.

And then a couple of weeks into Benny's hospital stay, there's a postcard, cancelled in Arizona. Signed "Hal and Jody and the kids," and covered with really tiny writing. Which, Ray discovers, is very boring. All about going into the Grand Canyon on donkeys, and oh it's so magnificent and oh it's so _hot_. No shit, Hal and Jody, whoever you are.

He's going to start a personal-mail pile with it, but when he flips it over he notices the front picture isn't the Grand Canyon. It's some kind of art print of a winter field, snow blizzarding down thick. Weird they didn't pick up a tourist postcard if they were so fucking impressed.

_Snow_.

He breathes in sharply, flips it back over and studies it hard. And--_yeah_\--there are very, very faint dots under scattered letters throughout the message. The first dot's under a V.

He grabs his pen and cop notebook and starts taking it down. And after the V the dotted letters spell out, yes, a street address in Tempe.

A black glee shoots up his spine, and he actually _shudders_ with it, because he's got her, he's _got_ her. He can get her picked up by the locals _today_. A few weeks for extradition, and he'll be looking at her in a courtroom.

He's savagely happy for a minute, and then thinks, _and so will Benny_. Probably from the witness stand.

"Fuck," he says out loud. Because no matter how hard he tries to picture it, and how much it ought to be there, he can't imagine any glee on Benny's face in that scenario at all.

He sighs. Digs up some matches and burns the postcard in the sink, and washes his hands for a long time afterward.

\--END--


End file.
